Psych 268 Eyewitness Memory

Q: What role can eyewitness memory play in a case?

A: Eyewitness memory might be the only form of evidence in a case.

Q: What must be distinguished when evaluating eyewitness memory?

A: One must distinguish between reliable and unreliable recollections.

Q: What are some limitations of memory in eyewitness testimony?

A: Memory can be inaccurate, incomplete, or influenced by misinformation and external factors.

Q: How can memory be preserved after a crime?

A: Memory can be preserved through careful interviewing and avoiding misleading information.

Q: What is recall in eyewitness memory?

A: Recall is remembering previous information without any clues.

Q: When does recall usually occur in eyewitness situations?

A: Recall occurs during witness interviews or testimonies.

Q: What is recognition in eyewitness memory?

A: Recognition is determining if you have seen something before.

Q: Who developed a method to increase accurate recall in witnesses?

A: Geiselman et al. (1984).

Q: What are the two main principles from Geiselman et al. (1984)?

A: The Multiple Retrieval Paths Principle and the Feature Overlap Principle.

Q: What does the Multiple Retrieval Paths Principle state?

A: Different retrieval cues can recall different details about an event.

Q: What does the Feature Overlap Principle suggest?

A: Recall is improved when encoding and retrieval contexts are similar.

Q: What is the Cognitive Interview?

A: A structured interviewing technique to increase accurate eyewitness recall.

Q: What are the four components of the Cognitive Interview?

A: Mental Context Reinstatement, Report Everything, Change Order, and Change Perspective.

Q: What is Mental Context Reinstatement?

A: Mentally placing the witness back at the crime scene event to aid recall.

Q: What does “Report Everything” encourage?

A: It encourages witnesses to tell everything, as no detail is too small or irrelevant.

Q: What is the purpose of “Change Order” in a cognitive interview?

A: Changing the order of events helps detect lies, since people are usually prepared for one version of the story.

Q: What does “Change Perspective” involve?

A: Remembering an event from a different perspective.

Q: Who developed the Enhanced Cognitive Interview?

A: Friedman and Geiselman (1992).

Q: What does the Enhanced Cognitive Interview emphasize for the interviewer?

A: Building rapport, being nice, and finding common ground with the witness.

Q: What should the interviewer do during an Enhanced Cognitive Interview?

A: Show active listening, take notes, and avoid interrupting.

Q: Who controls the pace of the Enhanced Cognitive Interview?

A: The witness controls the pace and flow of the interview.

Q: What type of questions should be asked first in an Enhanced Cognitive Interview?

A: Open-ended questions should come first, followed by more specific ones.

Q: What are threats to accurate recall in eyewitness testimony?

A: Misinformation, self-collected memory, and inaccurate reconstruction of unseen details.

Q: What is the misinformation effect?

A: When inaccurate information distorts the original memory from encoding and retrieval.

Q: Why does the misinformation effect occur?

A: It occurs due to the Misinformation Acceptance Hypothesis, Source Misattribution, and Memory Impairment.

Q: What is the Misinformation Acceptance Hypothesis?

A: It is when participants guess what experimenters want, leading to false recall.

Q: What is Source Misattribution?

A: Remembering multiple pieces of information but being unable to recall where they came from.

Q: What is Memory Impairment?

A: When the original memory is altered or replaced by new information.

Q: How does Memory Impairment relate to Source Misattribution?

A: It mitigates Source Misattribution by changing the original memory itself.

Q: What is a major cause of wrongful convictions?

A: Eyewitness error is responsible for most wrongful convictions.

Q: What famous case illustrates eyewitness error?

A: The Ronald Cotton case, where Jennifer Thompson misidentified the wrong person.

Q: What factors contributed to Jennifer Thompson’s mistaken identification?

A: Multiple lineups, stress, and not recognizing differences between races.

Q: What are the three steps in studying eyewitness recognition?

A: Staged event or video, retention interval, and memory test.

Q: What is the retention interval?

A: The time between witnessing an event and recalling it, which affects confidence and recognition.

Q: What is a memory test in eyewitness studies?

A: An identification procedure including the true culprit and sometimes an innocent suspect.

Q: How are eyewitness recognition studies similar to misinformation studies?

A: Both manipulate situational factors to study recall accuracy.

Q: What is a showup identification procedure?

A: A highly suggestible procedure where a single suspect is shown to the witness.

Q: What makes a showup procedure suggestible?

A: It is accompanied by police officers and presents one person at a time.

Q: What is a simultaneous lineup?

A: A lineup where all suspects are shown at once, including one definite suspect and several fillers.

Q: What type of judgment does a simultaneous lineup rely on?

A: It relies on relative judgment—comparing who looks most like the perpetrator.

Q: What is a sequential lineup?

A: A lineup where suspects are shown one by one and cannot be compared side-by-side.

Q: What type of judgment does a sequential lineup rely on?

A: Absolute judgment—deciding if each person meets the decision criteria.

Q: What is a “Hit” in lineup decisions?

A: Correct identification of a guilty suspect when the suspect is guilty and the police suspect is chosen.

Q: What is a “False Alarm”?

A: Incorrect identification of a suspect when the suspect is innocent and the police suspect is chosen.

Q: What is a “Miss”?

A: Incorrect rejection when the suspect is guilty and the police suspect is not chosen.

Q: What is a “Correct Rejection”?

A: Correctly not identifying anyone when the suspect is innocent.

Q: What does response bias refer to in lineup decisions?

A: Choosing someone based on certainty or alignment with memory.

Q: What are two strategies to reduce response bias?

A: Blank lineups and backloading.

Q: What is a blank lineup?

A: A lineup containing only fillers to test if the witness picks someone regardless of who is present.

Q: What is backloading?

A: Adding more photos in sequential lineups to reduce guessing and panic.

Q: What is discriminability in eyewitness recognition?

A: The ability to distinguish the culprit, fillers, and innocent suspects.

Q: What factors influence encoding during eyewitness events?

A: Lighting, intoxication, fatigue, stress, weapon presence, and other-race recognition.

Q: What is the other-race effect in eyewitness recognition?

A: Difficulty recognizing unique features of people from other races due to limited exposure.

Q: What are estimator variables?

A: Factors outside one’s control during encoding, such as a perpetrator’s mask.

Q: What can contaminate memory storage in eyewitnesses?

A: Interviews, post-event information, prior lineups, and popular media.

Q: What are system variables?

A: Methods of conducting procedures, such as lineup organization or instructions.

Q: What can poor quality eyewitness identification lead to?

A: Increased response bias and wrongful convictions.

Q: What is a non-blind administrator?

A: An officer who knows the suspect’s identity, increasing bias risk.

Q: What is post-ID feedback effect?

A: When praise from authority figures boosts a witness’s confidence and distorts memory.

Q: What are reflector variables?

A: Unique factors about the witness that influence memory and confidence.

Q: What are some examples of estimator variables?

A: Masked perpetrator, poor lighting, stress, or fatigue.

Q: How common are mistaken filler identifications in real cases?

A: Mistaken filler identifications occur in about one-third of real cases.

Q: Why is studying real eyewitness identifications difficult?

A: It is hard to find both guilty and innocent suspects in real cases.

Q: Who made major recommendations for eyewitness identification science?

A: Wells et al. (2020).

Q: What are Wells et al. (2020)’s recommendations before a lineup?

A: Conduct a pre-lineup interview and ensure evidence-based suspicion before including a suspect.

Q: What is evidence-based suspicion?

A: Having factual evidence before including a person in a lineup to avoid false identification.

Q: What is double-blind administration?

A: When neither the witness nor the administrator knows who the suspect is.

Q: Why is double-blind administration recommended?

A: To prevent bias and influence from the administrator.

Q: How should lineup fillers be selected?

A: Carefully, to avoid biased lineups and confusion.

Q: What should pre-lineup instructions accomplish?

A: They should prevent uncertain or forced choosing.

Q: Why is it important to get an immediate confidence statement?

A: It provides data for reflector variables and helps assess witness reliability.

Q: Why should lineup procedures be video recorded?

A: To ensure transparency and prevent disputes about the process.

Q: Why should repeated identification attempts be avoided?

A: They can influence memory and cause false confidence.

Q: When are showups acceptable?

A: Only when there are no other identification options.

Q: What does the U.S. Manson Test evaluate?

A: It evaluates whether eyewitness evidence obtained through suggestive procedures is still reliable.

Q: What are the Manson Test criteria?

A: Level of attention, opportunity to view, certainty, delay between event and ID, and description accuracy.

Q: What do the Canada Turnbull Rules provide?

A: A list of considerations for using eyewitness evidence in court.

Q: What are the Turnbull Rules criteria?

A: Observation time, distance, visibility, obstructions, familiarity, recall reasons, time gap, and descriptive accuracy.